1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to pouches for holding liquified or pulverized products, and more particularly, to an improved collapsible, sanitary pouch for use in shipping, storing and dispensing food products, as well as the tooling to make such pouches.
2. Description of Related Art
Because of the technical advances in film pouch forming, filling and sealing machines, more and more food and related products, in various states, are being packaged in flexible film pouches for dispensing of such products. Known machines to form, fill and seal such pouches utilize continuous rolls of film. Pouches are formed from the rolls of film, filled with product and then sealed in a continuous process.
To form pouches on these known form, fill and seal packaging machines, side seals are normally formed between front and back films by side seal forming means and a cross seal forming means is then utilized to form the bottom seal. This three-sided pouch is then filled with product and the machine indexed to forward the filled pouch. The same cross seal forming means is then utilized to form the top seam on this filled pouch. At the same time, it forms the bottom seam on the next partially formed, but still empty pouch. The formed pouch is then severed from the moving streams of front and back heat sealable films and is discharged from the machine. The machine is indexed and the cycle then continued.
The side seams or side seals of the pouch are formed at one station by side seal forming means, while the cross seams or cross seals are formed by a head seal containing opposing front and back seal bars which come together to join front and back rolls of material by pressure and heat. The combination of heat and pressure at both stations form cross and side seals between the films to create the various pouch seams. Examples of such machines are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,330 ("'330"), assigned to W. A. Lane, Inc. of San Bernardino, Calif., the assignee of the present invention. The disclosure of this patent is incorporated herein, in its entirety, by this reference thereto. Further such machines are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,845,926, also assigned to W. A. Lane, Inc.
As discussed in the '330 patent, the typical form, fill and seal packaging machine is capable of concurrently forming a linear array of side by side pouches across the width of the machine. The number of side by side pouches concurrently formed can vary from a single pouch, when large, wide pouches are being formed, up to a large number of narrow pouches, depending on the limits of the machine size and material(s) being used. The cross sealing means and separate cut-off or severing means to form such pouches must extend across the width of the material being formed, filled and sealed in the machine.
The final size of a pouch formed on a pouch packaging machine is usually determined by the amount and type of contents to be held in the pouch and how the contents will be dispensed from the pouch. Thus, the geometry of a pouch is highly dependent upon what the pouch will ultimately contain, as well as how and where its contents is to be dispensed.
Some specifically designed smaller pouches or containers are known for use in hand held and other devices for dispensing viscous food products. These known pouches and dispensing means have numerous drawbacks or problems, including, but not limited to, cost of labor to produce and/or use, packaging expense, portion control, sanitation, speed of dispensing and waste generation. Furthermore, such known pouches or containers usually have integral fitments or valving mechanisms that must be somehow operated or opened by the dispensing means to dispense the items contained therein.
With the current global concerns over environmental and safety issues, such as, sanitation in the delivery, storage and handling of food products, the need to cut down on solid waste and the need to save energy, large sanitary pouches offer a simple and elegant solution to many of these concerns. Therefore, there exists a need in the packaging and dispensing art for a relatively large, collapsible, sanitary dispensing pouch for use in holding and dispensing viscous food products from hand held or similar type dispensing means, which pouch overcomes the above set forth drawbacks and which can be easily manufactured and filled in existing machinery by use of specific tooling in accordance with the present invention.